Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Career Guidance: Higher Education for Arunachal Pradesh


Career Guidance: Higher Studies, Arunachal Pradesh

In his book ‘The Alchemist’, Poelo coelho describes the story of a shepherd boy named Santiago who embarks on a long journey to fulfil a dream. In the way he encounters all sorts of detours. But he also meets people who help him in remaining focussed. During his travels, he meets a beautiful Arabian woman named Fatima who explains to him that if he follows his heart, he shall find what it is he seeks. He also meets a king who famously quotes "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it". This in my opinion is the gist of the book. So in the end Santiago achieves in fulfilling his dreams despite all odds after having followed it for years.

Although the book is a work of fiction, it has great resemblance to actual life.

Air Jordan and His Airness are some of the nick-names that Michael Jordan earned during his career as an NBA professional. He is undoubtedly the best athlete who has ever taken to a basketball court. Jordan joined the NBA's Chicago Bulls in 1984. Prior to that the Bulls had a poor history in NBA. After having acquired Jordan in the team however it came to global prominence. Michael Jordan quickly emerged as a league star, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring. He is termed as a scoring machine having won many of the matches for his team and also he is considered to be one of the best defensive players in basketball. He has inked his name in the history of sports which will remain for eons to come. However there is something else which you should also know. During the selections for the varsity team he was rejected. He is described to have gone back to his room and cried in desperation. 


Saul Hudson was born in Hampstead London. He was a problem child always getting into trouble. At the age of 16 he was permanently expelled from his school. But that was probably something which wouldn’t have much of an effect on his future as he was determined to be something else. In his own words - "My big awakening happened when I was fourteen. I'd been trying to get into this older girl's pants for a while, and she finally let me come over to her house. We hung out, smoked some pot and listened to Aerosmith’s Rocks .It hit me like a fucking ton of bricks. I sat there listening to it over and over, and totally blew off this girl. I remember riding my bike back to my grandma's house knowing that my life had changed. Now I identified with something”. He took up his guitar and practiced for upto 12 hours a day. Today we know him as Slash, the quintessential lead guitarist of rock band ‘Guns and Roses’. Total Guitar (The best selling Guitar magazine in Europe) has ranked his riff in ‘sweet child of mine’ at No.1 on their list of “The 100 Greatest Riffs” while Time named him 2nd on their list of "The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players" in 2009.



Today, Chetan Bhagat is one of the most popular novelists in India. He has published four books all of which have been Indian Bestsellers. Two of his books have been adapted to Bollywood movies viz. ‘Five Point Someone’ and ‘One night at a Call Centre’. The New York Times have called him "the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history". Chetan Bhagat has been included in Time 100 most influential people in the world. He was however not always a novelist. Having graduated from IIT Delhi and then IIM Ahmedabad he worked in Hongkong as an investment banker for eleven years. However, he left his plum job to follow his dreams as a writer.
 







All the three personalities illustrated above have one thing common to Poelo Coelho’s Character Santiago, that of following their dreams. The persons narrated above are some of the popular ones on the planet who can be quoted as best examples for human achievements. However, they should not be treated as the only examples. Look around yourself, I am pretty sure you will find someone nearby who worked hard and followed his/her dreams. It could be your uncle who beat all odds to become an engineer or a doctor (at a time when Arunachal Pradesh had not fully understood the value of education/higher education) or it could be your brother who went against your parents to play guitar in a local band.

The basic gist of the blog is "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it". The best and only career guidance someone should give you right now is to follow your heart to achieve your dreams. If you want to be a soccer player, go and be a soccer player. If you want to be a politician, enter into a course that gives you an exposure to politics. If you want to write softwares and hack into computers, go and be a software engineer. Do what your heart tells you to do and follow it in dogged pursuit, you will definitely achieve your dream.

  

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Introduction to Content

For students throughout the country board examinations have just gotten over. And the students are now appearing for competitive exams for higher education. Those who have attempted the Xth standard equivalent must now be mulling at options for higher secondary education. Is it going to be the sciences or the humanities or the commerce streams and the like. And the ones who have appeared for the XIIth standard equivalent must now be juggling options between engineering or medicine or economics or core science etc.

Looking back at the time when I was at the same criss-cross that you might find yourself right now, I see myself having not much clue about what I really wanted to do in terms of higher studies. So every bit I did then was to follow what everyone else seemed to be doing. Everyone wanted to get into science in the higher secondary course and I followed them not really knowing what future beheld for us. Then after the XIIth board examinations, seemingly the only options available was engineering or Medicals. I chose engineering without a clue as to what it really meant. The only variables for coming to this decision were peer pressure and family aspirations. Although things turned out quite okay in the end, my debate in this blog is that I was really clueless as to what I wanted to do for Higher studies.

In this information age, you youngsters might be loaded with information but this blog will try to give you a broad picture about options in higher studies in what you should pursue and why should you pursue.

The blog is not about an expert piece on education. What it will contain will be opinion from people who are currently pursuing careers in different fields from an Arunachalee's point of view.